Raising Chickens and Homestead Animals - video series

Thanks to Daniel Bender for the video and Jason Smith for the editing and Kai Duby for writing the description.  And thanks to my patreon supporters for pushing me to get my youtube engine rolling again.

http://patreon.com/paulwheaton

This is my "concerns about the way most people raise chickens" presentation that later grew up to be my "Animals in the Landscape" segment that I would teach at permaculture design courses.  At some point I mashed a lot of this into an article:  https://richsoil.com/raising-chickens.jsp




In this video, Paul Wheaton discusses the various benefits of animals in the landscape at the 2016 Wheaton Labs Permaculture Design Course. He talks about how, through a paddock shift system, one can increase biomass production and thereby create a lush garden ecosystem. He claims that this technique is capable of increasing the productivity of a plot of land by five times. There is also brief discussion of veganism, vegetarianism, and veganic permaculture as an alternative, albeit less productive means of cultivating land. The Weston A. Price Foundation is cited as a source of information on nutrition and Michael Pollan's book The Omnivores Dilemma in mentioned. Alan Savory's work with elephants and moving ruminants across land with pulse or mob grazing is discussed in depth. Tim Barker chimes in by saying that the biodiversity of a plot of land with animals pulsing through will increase alongside biomass and will tend to increase the rate of succession from annual to perennial plants. The amount of supplemental feed may also be reduced by using a paddock shift system with pigs, cattle, chickens, sheep or goats. Ben Falk, the film Inhabit, and Gabe Brown are cited as inspiration and sources of more information.

Relevant stuff at permies:
https://permies.com/t/34499/Alan-Savory-PV-role-livestock
https://permies.com/c/critters

music by Jimmy Pardo
https://permies.com/t/30796/Jimmy-Pardo

Video by Daniel Bender
Edited by Jason Smith


Thanks to my patreon supporters:

Thanks to my patreon peeps for pushing me into making videos again.

https://permies.com
http://patreon.com/paulwheaton

(part 2 of 16) This is my "concerns about the way most people raise chickens" presentation that later grew up to be my "Animals in the Landscape" segment that I would teach at permaculture design courses.  At some point I mashed a lot of this into an article:

https://richsoil.com/raising-chickens.jsp

Thanks to Kai Duby for writing this description:

Paul Wheaton discusses portable shelters for paddock shift systems, which decrease the labor of mucking out animal pens while increasing animal comfort. The portable shelters are skiddable, meaning that they can be dragged across the ground with a tractor or other vehicle. There is brief discussion of portable shelters with wheels. Sepp Holzer's earth integrated pig shelters and Joel Salatin's cow and chicken shelters are cited as inferior designs. Their systems utilize deep mulching, especially over winter, to reduce smells and mucking of the animal pens. Design elements are mentioned for prtable shelters to better overwinter animals including the reduction of drafts and use of straw. Pine bow mulch bedding is said to have superior properties when compared with wood chips or straw. Pig shelters can have a floor as they are cleanly animals and their manure will not build up within a confined space if let out regularly. If it smells bad you're doing it wrong.

Relevant stuff at permies:

https://permies.com/c/critters
https://permies.com/t/64984/critters/Raising-Chickens-Homestead-Animals-video
https://permies.com/t/1958/critters/chicken-coops-runs-tractors-paddocks
https://permies.com/t/47740/ten-skiddable-structures

music by Jimmy Pardo
https://permies.com/t/30796/Jimmy-Pardo

Video by Daniel Bender
Edited by Jason Smith

Thanks to my patreon supporters:

Julia Mason
Josh Phillips
wade L
سليمان
Jason Hower
Bill Crim
Doug Barth
The Rayhawk Clan
One Community
Mark Allen
Kelton Mitchell
David Ingraham


http://patreon.com/paulwheaton

I just made parts 2 through 8 available to my patreon peeps.  I think if a person gets on the patreon bandwagon now, they will be able to see them.

Lookin for feedback  ...    ??

It has been a long time since I have tried to understand how to get a youtube video to appear to more people.   I think it helps to thumbs up, comment, subscribe and then click on "the little bell".

For all of my videos, I have turned off the obnoxious advertising that plays before the video starts.  On my most popular videos, I have turned the advertising entirely off.  

The next video will have no advertising and we've added a bit of text that says something like "thumbs up for no ads?"

Not sure if fiddling with that sort of thing makes a difference or not.

Part 2 - shelters



Thanks to Kai Duby for writing this description:

Paul Wheaton discusses portable shelters for paddock shift systems, which decrease the labor of mucking out animal pens while increasing animal comfort. The portable shelters are skiddable, meaning that they can be dragged across the ground with a tractor or other vehicle. There is brief discussion of portable shelters with wheels. Sepp Holzer's earth integrated pig shelters and Joel Salatin's cow and chicken shelters are cited as inferior designs. Their systems utilize deep mulching, especially over winter, to reduce smells and mucking of the animal pens. Design elements are mentioned for prtable shelters to better overwinter animals including the reduction of drafts and use of straw. Pine bow mulch bedding is said to have superior properties when compared with wood chips or straw. Pig shelters can have a floor as they are cleanly animals and their manure will not build up within a confined space if let out regularly. If it smells bad you're doing it wrong.

re: a factor of five.

I don't have my goats on the lawn but they are fertilizing it just the same.  I tossed out a lot of diluted kefir to the north of the well to the edge of the hay field all winter long.
I about covered every inch but more so 10 feet from the porch, where the grass grows much taller and faster. It is so much easier to toss it from the porch than to walk out on the snow some days just to get it spread more evenly.
Spreading it evenly is not that important. It is only the lawn.
I left the lawn alone to the south of the well. You can see the line where the grass was "fertilized". Not with manure but definitely with a goat product.
I have already mowed that area 3 times and it needs it again. The grass is taller there right now than to the south of the well where I haven't mowed even once. It does finally need it now.
It is only end of April and all my neighbors have mowed their lawn one time. But I am going on four times in just this small area.
Marilyn Kefirlady,
who will have gallons of extra kefir all summer and need to find an easy way to apply it to the hayfield. And more evenly than I have been.
The last two years I walked out with a couple of five gallon buckets every day (heavy) and tossed it here and there without rhyme or reason.
When half circles of lush grass showed up I knew something good was going on. And in the farthest corners where I never walk that far, it only needed mowing three times last year, but it was hardly lush.
Where the kefir got applied and my pee, I believe I mowed 8 times. Green and thick.

Another animal that doesn't shit in its own shelter - llamas and alpacas.  

Our biggest problem here, 48 degrees North, is we have 5-6 ft of snow up until April. In the Summer we rotational graze our animals but that only works for about 3-4 months. We have no way to have portable shelters during Winter so are forced to deep litter in our barn. We use wood chips. Any suggestions anyone? We usually have about 20 chickens, 2 breeder pigs, a Jersey cow and perhaps hopefully soon start a small Highland cattle herd (very cold tolerant but don't think they could maneuver through the deep snow)

We deep litter bed using straw from October until the nights are consistently warm and dry. Our barn has a concrete floor. The stalls are along the outside wall with the animals having separate runs into a small exercise run.
In the spring all of the bedding and the animal waste is piled in the remaining open alley where we pile the bedding. We rebed the animals with fresh straw. We mix it and wet it then cover it with a tarp. As it begins to decompose we turn it. Because it's turned and watered daily we are able to have a constant supply of compost to add to our newly planted beds.
As our pasture matures the animals are allowed to stay out longer. We use a very lightweight 4x8(built with chicken wire and 2x2's)portable pens with cheap blue tarps on them as our poultry and rabbit tractors. We rotate them through the pastures with the pigs,goats and ponies. The pastures are predator proof and the farm yard is protected by four very alert guardian dogs.
I think we are blesses to have a constant supply of our own organic compost  We also raise our own fodder and worms to add to our goal of a sustainable homestead.We are aiming towards zero outside inputs.

Pine bough mulch here just ended up as goat food. They also tend to eat the pine shavings too. They seem to not like the taste of straw so straw it is.

Personally I cannot watch any YouTube videos because our internet is primitive. But when we do get a chance to download and watch them we don't mind the commercials in the beginning. Curated content beats the random crap on television any day plus you can skip most of them after a few seconds.
To get more views the watchers need to like and share them. Just liking them doesn't help grow your audience.Asking the viewers to like and share makes more sense than asking for them to subscribe. I subscribe to a lot but I don't always watch the new videos. Only if they pertain to something I am researching. And I only share them if they are relevant to my tiny group of good friends that give a shit about what I like.

Part 3:  values and respect

here's a link to the chicken article Paul talks about in the last video which I'm off to read because I want to learn how I can give my chickens a better environment while still keeping them safe.

Love the image of the humans and the strawberries.  The water idea is great!  Best of all in this last video was the bit about respect especially when it came to harvesting.